Chamber and committees

Under agenda item 2, we will hear from stakeholders who support asylum seekers in Scotland. We will hear from Pinar Aksu, human rights and advocacy co-ordinator, Maryhill Integration Network; Selina Hales, founder and director of Refuweegee; Nick Hobbs, head of advice and investigations, Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland; María José Pavez, policy officer, Grampian Regional Equality Council; Savan Qadir, project manager, Refugees for Justice; and Dr Sarah Stewart, volunteer and partnership manager, Friends of Scottish Settlers. You are all very welcome to the meeting.

I refer members to papers 1 and 2. After our panel members have given short opening statements, we will move to questions. We will start with Pinar Aksu.

A lot of hands have gone up.

It is very distressing to hear that. To summarise quickly, in your opinion, the right to education is not being fulfilled, there is no right to work and there is no access to money, because of the £45 limit. The impact on mental health is long and traumatic, which is very distressing to hear.

I will bring in Nick Hobbs. I am sure that you can add to Pinar Aksu’s powerful testimony, Nick.

Thanks, Graham. Can we move on to Andy, please?

Other panel members will wish to come in on this, so I ask them to raise their hand to let me know.

Andy, you say that the Home Office has stopped making decisions. It cannot have just stopped making decisions; it must still be making decisions. Are you saying that the decisions are not being made efficiently or that the Home Office is not devoting enough time or resources to them, or is there something else?

I will bring in Pam Duncan-Glancy.

We will move on to Karen Adam.

Thank you to the panel members for their opening remarks. As we proceed with our questioning, I will kick us off, and I will be followed by my colleagues, who will come in with their own lines of questioning.

Colleagues, if you wish to come in with a supplementary, please indicate that to me, and I will do my best to bring you in. I also ask colleagues to direct their question at a particular panel member to start us off. If any other panel member wishes to add further information, please indicate that to me and I will bring you in. On that note, we will crack on.

I will come to Andy Sirel first. I am interested in the legislative context of asylum in the UK and how that comes together with Scotland. It would be good for us to get a bigger picture of where we sit with regard to the UK and of the effect of that context on asylum seekers and service providers in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Thank you very much, Maggie and everyone. I am sure that people will bear with me as I take on the role of committee convener for the first time. I also thank Joe FitzPatrick for all the work that he did and wish him well. I look forward to working with everybody.

Thank you very much for that. I have a short time left for my questions. I ask Annika Joy and Phil Arnold whether they would like to add anything. The original question was about the legislative context so, if you want to refer to the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, now is the time to do so. We may be able to come back to it.